Blog #6 by Barry R. Willis. www.barryrwillis.com December 2021
There have been many discussions about what we might call “The Feud.” A general summary of this might be to tell you that when Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs left Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys band in 1948, they didn’t speak for over two decades. Call it jealousy or hate or resentment or whatever, it did exist.
This month we’ll discuss various aspects of this bluegrass history controversy. Hang on; we may step on some toes.
In 1955, Flatt and Scruggs became permanent members of the Grand Ole Opry. Until that time, they were only guests. Josh Graves (who joined Flatt and Scruggs and the Foggy Mountain Boys about 1955) told this writer of Bill Monroe’s attempts to keep Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs off the Opry, “When they worked together [in the Blue Grass Boys] they were the best of friends and were a great band. As far as I’m concerned, that was bluegrass! When Lester and Earl went out on their own, there was some jealousy there and they didn’t speak for twenty-two years.
“Bill was that way,” continued Mr. Graves. “I knew him before that and when I came in with Flatt and Scruggs, Bill wouldn’t speak to me. But the boys in [Monroe’s] band talked [to me]. They didn’t want us to but we did. People like me and James Monroe and Joe Stuart talked a lot and that’s how Flatt was booked at Bean Blossom (which was Monroe’s festival in Brown County, Indiana).. I’d go tell Lester good things Bill had said about him, and James [Monroe] would tell Bill the same things about Lester. So in ‘71 or ‘72, when Lester was asking about the June schedule, I told him we were going to Bean Blossom. He said, ‘You’ve got to be kidding!’ So when we got there, Bill came backstage, grabbed me and said, ‘How’s my boy?’ Then [he] turned around and shook hands with Lester and welcomed him to Bean Blossom
“Bill was on stage and said that folks wanted them to sing some songs together and Lester looked over at him and said, ‘Can you still cut it?’ I remember that. And when they hit the stage with those songs, I don’t think there was a dry eye out there.” (This last quotation is from a 1980 article in Bluegrass Unlimited magazine by Dr. Charles Wolfe.)
Dobroist and International Bluegrass Music Association Hall of Fame inductee Josh Graves told this writer that when Flatt and Scruggs split, Josh continued with the more traditional sound of Lester Flatt and the Nashville Grass. However, according to Graves, the reason for him choosing one band over the other was not because of a musical preference (certainly the men’s groups were very different), Graves said, “Hell no! I just wanted to make a living.” He loved both men and found it difficult to choose one over the other.
Earl Scruggs and Bill Monroe also made up while Graves was with Flatt’s Nashville Grass band. Scruggs and his Earl Scruggs Revue performed at Bean Blossom to show off his new band which included Graves. Interestingly, Flatt wouldn’t speak to Graves for the two years that Graves was with the Revue. Graves described the reason for leaving Flatt, “Well, we got to where we couldn’t get along. And there was a lot of controversy in the group and I just got tired of hearing it.” (This quotation by Josh Graves was made to this writer at his home in November 1994.)
IBMA Hall of Fame member Curly Seckler would not elaborate on this feud to this writer but did tell this me that while Flatt and Scruggs’ popularity was at its peak, Bill Monroe couldn’t even keep a band together. Seckler described how popular the band of Flatt and Scruggs and the Foggy Mountain Boys was, “Lord, you couldn’t carry the mail that they was gettin’ home in that bus hardly. They were just stackin’ ‘em in!”
It has been said by some that when Monroe heard that Flatt and Scruggs was coming to Nashville, he said the only way they would look right in Nashville was on the street with a cup. It seems like “the upstarts,” as they were called, had made it to the big time in Nashville too. Seckler added, “In my opinion, when he thinks that there ain’t no room out here for the rest of us, I don’t believe the good Lord would put a man here on earth if he didn’t have something for him to do. There’s room out there for everybody, I don’t care who they are. Look at the thousands out there now makin’ a livin’ at it (bluegrass). He felt like that—that we weren’t entitled to the Opry—but he’d better thank his good Lord every time he passes Sparta, Tennessee, get down on his knees and kiss Lester Flatt’s grave—in my opinion! ‘Cause if it hadn’t been for us, I don’t believe he would be where he is today. That’s my honest opinion!”
Mr. Seckler emphasized that he was in the Foggy Mountain Boys band when that band got into the college circuit and “made the thing go.” Monroe is well known for not being a businessman, said Mr. Seckler, but Lester and Earl viewed their music as a business—with a very tough manager, Louise Scruggs, to run it. According to Seckler, “We worked! We worked seven days a week, year in and year out. In my opinion, they’re the ones who put it on the map.”
Lance LeRoy, who was a bluegrass band booking agent and member of the IBMA Hall of Fame, in a 1996 letter to this writer, told of a time when Bill Monroe tried to keep Flatt and Scruggs from the Opry. ”The fact is that in 1953 when Bill Monroe heard that Martha White Mills wanted Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs to be members of the Grand Ole Opry and to host the regular Martha White time slot, Monroe, motivated only by pure jealousy and spite, apparently fought it bitterly with Opry management. He even circulated a petition backstage at the Opry for the other members to sign, stating that whoever signed it was opposed to Lester and Earl being made members of the cast. He succeeded in keeping them off for more than a year.
“Of course, any good journalist would ask at this juncture, ‘Do you have proof?’” LeRoy continued, ‘I do indeed, and the strongest kind of proof. One night backstage at the Opry while it was still held in the Ryman Auditorium, Roy Acuff came in Lester’s dressing room, one of the small rooms that were barely large enough to hold a five-piece band. It was in 1970 or 1971 and I think, possibly the latter. Roy began reminiscing with Lester and I stood there and heard Acuff relate an incident whereby Bill Monroe brought the petition to him. Acuff said he read it and it specified that Monroe’s music belonged to him and that Lester and Earl should not be brought in to compete with him. Acuff said he signed it but very soon began to realize that the music belonged to Lester and Earl as much as to Monroe. He thereupon looked Monroe up, retrieved the petition, and made Monroe scratch his name off. He said he felt that Lester and Earl would be a credit to the Opry and had every right to be there. Acuff added that Ernest Tubb refused to sign it when it was presented to him by Monroe.
“I would like very much for you to quote me on this in your book and I stand behind every word of it. And proudly, The truth should be told. Hastily. late at night… Best Wishes.” It was signed Lance LeRoy.
Mr. Carlton Haney (also a member of the IBMA Hall of Fame) was there at the backstage of the Opry when he witnessed the feud. As you might know, Mr. Haney was Bill Monroe’s band manager for several years. He told this writer Monroe “had a disagreement with the Opry people about puttin’ Flatt and Scruggs on the Opry playin’ what he felt was his music…to say that Martha White Flour contacted WSM about puttin’ Flatt and Scruggs on the Opry to do their show. They were one of WSM’s biggest advertisers. And Monroe opposed this. And there was some talk with other artists and all about it. But Flatt and Scruggs added a pioneer Dobro player who turned out to be one of the greatest: Josh “Buck” Graves. And it changed their sound so much; it was so different from what Monroe was still playin’ that Monroe stopped his opposition to them comin’ on. And that’s about the way it was!
“Now if you want to put what Lance said about Acuff, that’s fine. But see, Acuff ain’t here to defend hisself and neither is Monroe. You can mention this because everybody in the music business knows that Monroe was opposed to them goin’ on the Opry. Some of them know that it was because they changed their sound with a Dobro and never did use the mandolin. You see, there’s no mandolin breaks on any of their records and they never took any on the Opry. But that wasn’t in the deal; there was no deal made that they had to do that. They did that because they didn’t want to sound like Monroe. They didn’t want to.”
Next month we’ll have another excursion into another controversy in the world of bluegrass music.
Barry R. Willis. banjobarry5@gmail.com
Relevant Blog Comments
Hi, Barry,
Thanks for instalment #6 of your blog, dealing with the persistent myth that when Earl Scruggs and Lester Flatt left the Blue Grass Boys early in 1948, Bill Monroe was so angry that he did not speak to them for ‘over two decades’. The evidence you present makes it clear that the animosity was focused on 1955, when Flatt & Scruggs became members of the Grand Ole Opry despite Monroe’s vehement opposition.
However, the relationship had not previously been as bad, and the evidence for that comes from the most famous instrument exchange in bluegrass history – when Earl Scruggs traded the 1938 Gibson RB-75 #518-1 he was then playing to Don Reno in exchange for the 1934 Gibson RB-Granada #9584-3, plus a Martin guitar to compensate for the poor condition the Granada was in. The two banjos became the main instruments of their new owners for the rest of their careers (though Reno for the last ten years of his life performed and recorded with a Stelling Golden Cross, keeping the Gibson ‘Nellie’ at home).
The exchange has been dated to either the summer of 1948 or early 1949. The important point is that it took place when Reno was a Blue Grass Boy (Mar. 1948-July 1949), and when Monroe and his band were playing as guests on the WCYB radio show that Flatt & Scruggs had in Bristol, TN/VA. The occasion is described by Earl on p. 163 of Earl Scruggs and the 5-string banjo (revised ed., 2005): ‘Lester and I invited Bill to be a guest on our radio show, and he accepted the invitation.’
Bill had undoubtedly been upset when Lester and Earl left him, but it appears that at this short time after the split they were still on speaking terms. As Tom Ewing writes in Bill Monroe: the life and music of the Blue Grass Man (2018), p. 147, ‘It’s clear that there were no ill feelings at this point, but they were not yet competitors.’
All good wishes, Richard Hawkins Editor, The Bluegrass Ireland Blog February 2, 2021
Note from Fred Bartenstein. February 2022
Thanks Barry.
Sonny Osborne once said that half of what Carlton Haney said was true . . . but you could never tell which half. Anyway, here’s the story Carlton told me (Carlton worked for Bill in 1953 and 1954, so this story must date to that period):
Bill, Lester and Earl remained on good terms after the latter two left the Blue Grass Boys. Bill was playing somewhere and ran into Lester and Earl, asking them to pick one with him on stage. They told him they would like to, but hadn’t brought their instruments. Later Bill was walking in the parking lot and saw the instrument cases in Lester and Earl’s car. And, according to Carlton, that was where the feud began. Carlton claimed firsthand knowledge of the Opry/Cohen Williams incident in ’55 and regularly told a version of it that squares with other chronicles.
Fred
****
I responded to Fred in this message:
Yeah. Carlton told me that story too. I believe more than half of what he told me…except the part about Pythagoras. I was enraptured with what he told me but reached out to Bill Keith for his opinion on what Carlton was saying.
I typed out the entire interview I had with Carlton and sent it to Bill Keith who had a degree in music. He said Carlton had taken his little bit of music knowledge and “gone too far.”
Notwithstanding, Carlton had a terrific memory and was a story teller without equal. I loved him.
In any case, I loved what he shared with me…including the Opry experience you may know about.
Barry
Here is a Facebook note from ex-Blue Grass Boy Doug Hutchens. It is relevant to this blog because it references the publicity feud which Bill Monroe and Lester Flatt had for many years. Hutchens was there in the midst of it and remembered:
Doug Hutchens May 11, 2020 ·
Its hard to believe that it has been 41 years since Lester Flatt passed.
I was working at Alice Lloyd College and had just came in and turned on the evening news. I think it was Roger Mudd who said “Today in Nashville Tennessee, Country Music Entertainer Lester Flatt died”.
I sat and tears flooded my eyes. I had been working with Bill Monroe when he and Lester “Buried the Hatchet” after a long time so called publicity feud.
As I sat there I remembered all the times that he and Bill got together after that reunion on June 20, 1971 after they walked on stage at Bean Blossom, shook hands and sang Roll in my sweet baby’s arms and Little Cabin Home on the Hill. While Bill was taking a mandolin break, Lester looked over and said “Its been a long time, Bill”, Bill was in mid break and simply nodded. Few heard this because its not on the tape of that reunion, but I was sitting at the corner of the stage and heard it.
In the fall of 1971 after returning to college, I attended a show at Sandy Ridge School when Lester appeared there. I was sitting in the 3rd or 4th row and when they took an intermission Roland White came out and told me that Lester wanted to see me. I went down the hallway to the classroom where they were and Lester was talking to someone, I spoke to Haskell McCormick [of the McCormick Brothers band] and when Lester finished his conversation he kinda nodded his head sideways for me to come over as if he wanted to say something that he didn’t want others to hear. He ask me how I was doing and after I said things were fine, he asked “Did you and Bill have words?” I said no that I had left the band to go back to college to which he said “Well, I’m glad to hear that” and that “Me and Bill worked a date a couple of weeks ago and I saw that you weren’t with him”.
It was so nice to have someone like Lester to even care. I sure miss you Lester.
From Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine March 2026. Article by Thomas Goldsmith.
This further adds clarity to the subject of “The Feud.” I’m glad folks are still interested in this very important part of bluegrass history.
Goldsmith wrote in June 13, 1989:
“Monroe went on to talk forthrightly about his feelings about Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs, two foundational figures of the music who worked in his Blue Grass Boys from 1945 through 1948. He conceded that the so-called “classic band of the era’ had been a good one. ‘I gave Earl a chance to be in the Blue Grass Boys,’ he said. ‘And it was good for Lester Flatt to come along.’
“However, in Monroe’s telling, Flatt and Scruggs contributed little to the other elements that made up bluegrass music. ‘Bluegrass was already going when they got into the picture,’ he said. ‘They didn’t have nothing to do with bluegrass, getting it going the way it’s going. The fast time of the music and everything was already there. They just had a job.’
“Many followers of this music would say, with justification, that Scruggs’ fiery banjo picking and Lester Flatt’s singing in 1945 completed the sound that Monroe began crafting after splitting with his brother in 1938. But it was illuminating to hear Monroe say, basically, that bluegrass had been his creation, along with the contributions from many of the Blue Grass. ‘All of them have played a part int the music,’ he said. ‘Everybody that’s worked for me, when they were coming along with some good ideas. Some of the fiddle players, some of the banjo players, some of the guitar players, had good ideas that they would come along with that I would use and put in the music.’